Bataille's "Eroticism" X Henggun Mengguo "Scumbag's Original Wish": Erotica is the part of consciousness that questions one's own life

Apart from Sade's "One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom" and "The Doom of the Virgin", the French philosopher - Georges. L'Érotisme (L'Érotisme) published by Georges Bataille in 1957 is another important classic that people cannot avoid when they study erotica and sex. The most interesting part of this work is that, contrary to his title, he does not talk about eroticism in terms of eroticism itself, but the opposite: from the suppression and taboo of eroticism to talk about the essence of eroticism: transcendence.

Unlike our general imagination of lust, Bataille did not simply regard lust as a human instinct. Rather, think of it as a stronger desire that came after civilization. He first emphasized that the biggest difference between humans and animals is that humans can work and form a fixed order and laws of daily life to maintain the stable development of social civilization. The sexual desire for reproduction originally possessed by human beings as an animal has undergone a greater change in nature due to the baptism of religion and civilization. The simple difference is this: Sexuality is no longer for the purpose of reproduction. Rather, it has the purpose of disrupting and cracking the daily order.

"Eroticism is an act of non-production, pure consumption."

Simply put, love is about romance, playfulness, and profligacy. Aside from the underlying drive to reproduce, love is more about making life less boring and lonely. And create a magical moment that is different from everyday life. And this shaping must rely on the uneconomical squandering of life and all kinds of meaningless squandering. Although the power of religion is declining day by day, Bataille pointed out that the essence of "love" is actually a religion. In addition to being full of rituals and symbols, people yearn for a divine color and splendor (love) from time to time. And making love is a fiery sacrifice. Pursue the unattainable spiritual fusion in the painful and incomparably sublimated intercourse.

How did this ardent human passion and pursuit of sanctity come about? This is the issue that Bataille discusses throughout his Erotica. And his views are surprisingly conservative, yet subversive. In order for desire to be fully and intensely brought into full play, the first thing we need is not freedom and liberation, but a religious-like patience and prohibition of desire. Only then can the power of lust explode into the "divine redemption" that splits the daily life.

For Bataille, it is true that humans have erotic animal instincts. However, it is because civilization has established taboos that the reproductive instinct has turned into a stronger desire (erotica). The essence of erotica is the transcendence of taboos and civilizations (disintegration of daily life and laws), and at the same time of transcendence, it does not abolish taboos, so as to achieve the pleasure of transcendence. In this case, repression is even more important than desire itself, because the prohibition of desire will bring the erotic imagination to the extreme and make the desire stronger in the course of time. And the entire history of erotica, in addition to the history of desire, is more importantly the history of taboos. In other words, you could say that the most interesting thing about Erotica is that the whole book talks more about the structure and perspective of eroticism through asceticism (religion, reason, work, civilization) than about lust.

It is at this point that we can link to a very wonderful anime work in the new show in January 2017 - "The Scumbag's Original Wish".

On the surface, this is an animation talking about love, but for the author, the reason why "Human Scum" is really exciting is because it is a campus romance animation that discusses eroticism very seriously. And the author wants to remind everyone that although many people may feel that "Human Scum" is full of explicit and lustful images after watching it, including large-scale physical displays, and lingering kisses and caresses. But it should be noted that many of these pictures are not to express lust, but on the contrary, it is to show the resistance of the characters to lust.

This is the most obvious from the ambiguous relationship between the heroine Hana and the hero Mai. In the play, they each have secret crushes, namely the school's Chinese teacher Ming Hai and music teacher Akane. At the same time, they both know that their love cannot succeed. On the one hand, Hua Huo knows that the innocent Chinese teacher Ming Hai likes the music teacher Akane, whom Mai secretly loves; on the other hand, Mai, on the other hand, has long known that the woman she loves - Akane is a so-called "green tea bitch", she He will not fall in love with anyone, but will only use his appearance to seduce men to become his prey, and discard it when bored.

Two people who feel lost in love meet by chance and find it as if they are stand-ins for each other's lovers. Desire to make up for the loss of unrequited love in each other through sex. However, they soon found it difficult. On the one hand, they didn't really like each other, and on the other hand, Hana couldn't let go of the object of their unrequited love. Even if they are willing to play couples at school and dare to try kissing and caressing, they will never be able to try sex, but can only touch and stimulate a little to ease the loss and anxiety of not being able to fall in love.

We can often detect that the protagonists are always struggling in the huge, full of naked touch and stimulation. On the one hand, they long for the pleasure of caressing, and at the same time feel intimidated. Because the intoxication of pleasure can make one forget the self that loves others and pretends to be okay, but this forgetting itself is a source of pain, even despair, and guilt. Because he asks people to become not themselves.

"The essence of erotica consists in the inseparable union between pleasure and taboo. In human terms, taboo conjures up sexual pleasure; likewise, sexual pleasure conjures taboo." — Erotica

We will find that the way "Human Scum" penetrates into eroticism has similar thinking and principles to Bataille's "Erotic Theory": rather than expressing eroticism, it is more to show the protagonist's heart by constantly expressing erotic resistance. The power and holiness of desire (love). In this repeated process of stimulation and suppression, the audience will see that the essence of eroticism is a psychology of wanting to go beyond but fear of going beyond.

This is very important, because in Bataille's thinking. Although some love and sex are related to sex, they are not "erotica" as he calls them. And some "erotica may not even involve sex." The key point is whether the lust related to behavior involves the psychology of overstepping, trying to collide with taboos and norms. And in this sense, the author believes that although "Human Scum" talks about love on the surface, it is actually a work that discusses eroticism and eroticism. We'd even be surprised to learn that even though the hero and heroine didn't have a single successful sex session, there was more resistance, struggle and at the same time suggestion, craving caressing, kissing between them than if they had actually had sex. It is more erotic, and it makes the viewers even more intolerable. In this process, as Bataille puts it, like the protagonist, we feel "in desire, a strong impulse to disintegrate ourselves." But at the same time, in disintegration there is a huge liberation.

The difference is that "Human Scum" not only expresses the eroticism in Bataille's mouth, but also expresses repressed love through eroticism. In the play, Fireworks said:

"If you like both and feel pain because of it, then I advise you to suffer to the end."

In this anime, if love is pain, then erotica is love that wants to escape pain.

These two kinds of love are not the same. One longs for union, and it is best to never change like true love. Empty, lonely state before. This is also the reason why in the end, when the male and female protagonists were freed from their fantasy of love, they embraced deeply but did not choose to be together. And Hana (aside from her relationship with her best friend Xiaoe) always chooses to bear the pain, and does not easily vent her pain through sex.

On the other hand, the debauchery of the female teacher Akane, at first glance, is a huge contrast to Hana, who sticks to the bottom line. But after seeing it, you will find that the plight of the two actually has a similar resonance. And let Hana almost want to become a woman like Akane.

"Take advantage of the goodwill of others to fill the emptiness in your heart."

This is what Xiaoe said to Hana in the play, and it is also the reason why Hana wants to become like Akane. In the play, Xiaohui said this sentence in the hope that he could replace the relationship established by the male protagonist Mai and Hana. Anyway, Mai doesn't like fireworks, so why don't you let yourself who like fireworks become the erotic substitute for satisfying fireworks. But the most ironic thing is that on the surface, the small paintings that are supposed to be used by others may be the real users. Conversely, the male protagonist Mai is actually an exploiter. In the play, although he knows that he does not love another female character who has liked him since childhood, Nailizi, but in order to make Nailizi not so lost, he agrees to date her. , the request to pretend to be a couple for a day, as if it were a kind of make-up, and let Noiriko use herself willfully to fill the hole she created in her. But in reality the situation is quite the opposite. Instead of being exploited, Mai is using other people's favor to try to satisfy his emptiness that he can't get love. Although in the end, he did not take full advantage of this selfishness. But then, he let his emptiness be used willingly by the woman he yearned for, Akane.

If you can't get love, then you want to be a lover. Because we all want someone else who can take care of our emptiness. This is the reason why "The Scumbag's Original Wish" is the scumbag's original wish. In it, each role is like a chain of biological links between the user and the user. Digest the emptiness in each other. And the most dissolute Akane is the reason that triggers this biological chain to expand and extend. And she not only used the favor of others to fill her own emptiness, but her use itself was the biggest reason for her to feel empty about herself. Because it seems that she has used the goodwill of others to the point that she can't tell whether she is using others or using herself.

But even so, in this emptiness and loneliness of love, Akane still felt intoxicated. You could even say that the reason why she loves debauchery so much is precisely because she can use it to molest and laugh at the values of everyday life and love that are too mundane. And get "achievement" in this transcendence. This "achievement" is not the same as the desires of the previous characters. In addition to good feelings, in fact, Qian likes to see other people's jealousy towards her. At the same time, it is not so much the good feelings of others that she prefers the pleasure of a man surrendering under her skirt.

Here, erotica begins to be interlinked with a desire for power and domination. We are not surprised that Bataille, who constantly emphasizes that erotica is a transcendence, does not discuss much about the relationship between eroticism and power in Erotica. The only thing he mentions is the view that lust has to do with man's desire to master death. And think that the reason why people's imagination of eroticism is so abundant is because people's imagination of eroticism comes from people's tendency to dream of becoming immortal and conquering death in sexual activities.

To rule over death, or to be immortal, does not mean to be something immortal. Instead, it means that in order to resist the idea that life is limited, people will long to engage in exciting things such as adventures to make themselves experience a feeling and experience that will make him feel eternal and unforgettable, so as to eliminate the fear of death. At the same time, if death refers to a state of lifelessness and loss of vitality, then death has become a kind of daily life in modern times, because when the daily life is no longer novel, life is like death. And the appearance of eroticism is to resist the lifeless life.

This idea is also very similar to Freud's view on sex in "Civilization and Its Defects" (or translated "Civilization and Its Discontents"). It is believed that human sex has never been just sex, because the essence of sex is curiosity and the desire to create. Feeling sexual desire for a person does not necessarily mean wanting to have sex with him, but it means that the person first arouses his own curiosity and wants to create an experience with him that he has never felt or experienced before, not necessarily to reproduce. He believes that human sexuality has changed from the instinct of biological reproduction to the driving force of curiosity and creation, because people must resist, face the suppression and "death impulse" brought by civilization and rationality.

Comparing sexuality to creative and curious urges explains the relationship between Hana and Mai. However, it doesn't seem right to use it on Akane. At the same time, we are also puzzled: why, for Akane, is lust just a pleasure to hunt for achievement?

In addition, the most puzzling plot of "Scumbag's Original Wish" is the plot in which the male teacher, Naruto, whom Hana has a crush on, proposes to Akane. He told Qian that he didn't care about Qian's behavior of seducing men around, and if that was what she liked, even if they got married, they didn't need to stop for him. Akane was puzzled at first, because she had never met such a man who didn't mind being cuckolded. At the same time she thought:

"Can a person really like someone who hates him all the time? Presumably most people's answer is no, right? Even if he likes the other person in his heart, most of the reasons for this liking also include the other person's liking for himself. (So ) It is impossible to love someone unconditionally.”

So she asked Ming Hai in tears: "Why do you like someone like me?"

Narumi recalled the image of his mother's figure and Akane stacked together in his mind, kissed Akane and said:

"It's so hard to explain why I like you... I just want the person I like to live happily ever after..."

Is that enough? Akane asked in confusion. And the picture that appeared in Ming Hai's mind was not his mother, nor the figure of Akane. Instead, he held the fireworks, and when he looked at the fireworks, the fireworks turned to face his erratic eyes and face full of admiration and sadness at the same time.

"Once I start taking, it's endless. I can't control my desire. I'm afraid I'll end up hurting the people I hold most dear."

It was at this moment that we realized that the seemingly most "innocent" Naruto might be the least pure. His love for Akane actually reflects a very complex longing and admiration. We might even ask if he fell in love with Akane precisely because he didn't want his feelings for Hana (or vice versa) to hurt Hana? And Akane's thought: "It is impossible to love someone unconditionally." It is indeed true, but Narumi did not reveal that the reason why he liked Akane in the first place was related to his deceased mother. But what's interesting is that Ming Hai's love for Akane is different from the first half of the idea that Akane came up with. He didn't fall in love with the other party because he liked him, but because Akane caused him to fall in love with a person in himself. Missing, loving and falling in love with her significant other (his mother).

This is the biggest difference between Ming Hai and Mai falling in love with Qian. In this comparison, Mai likes Qian because he can get back her love for him (even if it may be fake) in the relationship with Qian, and then smooth it out. Some kind of emptiness. But for Narumi, the love for Akane is enough as long as it can respond to the memories and yearnings of an important thing, attachment in his heart. As if this love, as Bataille said, responded to something divine in one's heart.

Another difference between Narumi and Hana, Mai, and Akane is that he has the clearest understanding of "love". Because of this, he has almost no doubts about his own love for Akane. Although Hua Huo and Mai may both know love and liking, they can't bear the loss of love, so they let their empty lust rage around their bodies, and want to forget the loss caused by falling in love with someone. As for Qian, the predicament she encountered might be that she had difficulty distinguishing what was like and what was love. Not even knowing what is worth pursuing in a relationship. So the relationship is only seen as sensual gratification, or as a predatory achievement. Because she thought that what other people liked for her was after all just the narcissism that others saw in her, so she had to find a way to snatch it away. And this kind of constant plundering will actually form another kind of emptiness in the end, because it makes people in the state of communication, only pay attention to themselves in the eyes of others, and will not really stare at the object in a relationship, and bring Lost from me, because in disintegrating others, she disintegrates herself. This is also clear to Qian, but she has long since given up her expectations. Believing that you are destined to never find true love, you will only be immersed and lost in the game of eroticism, comforting yourself with the pleasure of being disintegrated. Therefore, when encountering Narumi's reaction, he was puzzled and said, "Why do you like a person like me?", revealing that although he has a lot of love history, he has long been inferior and empty.

And if Akane is someone who can't, or even give up, distinguishing between love and liking, then Narumi is the one who finally made her realize what love and liking are. It also made her understand that love can not be a hunting relationship to obtain her own love from others. Then he opened his heart, and finally recognized and accepted Narumi's love for him.

Some people say that "Scumbag's Original Wish" broke people's three views, the scale is wide, and the plot is complicated and full of doubts. But in fact, on the contrary, "Scumbag's Original Wish" shows us people's most real but unspeakable doubts about emotions and desires through complex characters and plots. Such doubts make this film, despite its large scale, not pornographic at all, because pornographic films often care about and deliberately express the pleasure of eroticism, rather than the concern and thinking of eroticism itself. Therefore, he makes the audience ignore the doubts, hesitations and fears that people are deeply involved in the pleasure. But as Bataille said in Erotica:

"The biggest difference between human and animal erotica is that human erotica is the part of consciousness that questions one's own life."

But on the other hand:

"The so-called eroticism can be said to be an affirmation of life, until death."

Although lust is the "divine redemption" that splits the daily life, it also brings deep questions about oneself at the same time as the splitting. Because he wants us to doubt whether our selves caught in lust are really our selves. In other words, he not only splits the daily life, but also tears himself apart. None of the characters in the play who compare themselves to "scumbags" are real scumbags, but each of them is trying their best to explore and face their inner struggles. Learn to question your motives in lust, but also learn to affirm your desires in lust. And only when we muster up the courage to feel and recognize our own ambiguous, destructive and violent lust, can we find the meaning of love in the lost.

(Original post on Blog: The Laboratory of Literature )

FB Fan Special: https://pse.is/RRMEU

Medium: https://pse.is/RT8RA

Square: https://vocus.cc/1111/home